Tulum built its international reputation on something most beach destinations could not offer: a sense of place. Nature, wellness, authenticity, a traveler who came looking for something beyond sun and a pool. For a decade, that proposition worked. Now, businesses are closing in the town center, hotel occupancy has dropped to levels the sector describes as among the worst on record, and long-time residents are mourning a destination they say was allowed to destroy itself.
Into this moment stepped David Ortiz Mena, president of the Mexican Caribbean Hotel Council, with a warning that reads less like a forward-looking strategy and more like a diagnosis of what already went wrong.
The Panel and the Prescription
Speaking at a panel discussion held in Mexico City as part of the Pop Up CDMX event organized around Cozumel Vivo Fest, Ortiz Mena addressed a question that now carries concrete urgency for the region: what do destinations that build long-term competitiveness do differently?
His answer centered on a shift in priorities. Destinations that survive, he argued, are those that move away from models built entirely on growth and volume, toward frameworks that protect sustainability, territorial quality, and the identity that made them attractive in the first place.
"The most successful destinations of the future will not necessarily be those that grow the most, but those that best manage to preserve their value, their identity, and their environment," he said.
He pointed to Tulum's early rise as a case study in differentiated positioning. Before the infrastructure projects, before the airport, before the hotel zone expanded into what it is today, Tulum competed on something other than price and scale.
"Tulum understood before many destinations that the modern traveler is not just looking for lodging. He is looking for connection, meaning, and experiences with identity," Ortiz Mena said.
The panel also featured Javier Puente Garcia, former president of the Mexico City Hotel Association; Beatriz Barreal Danel, CEO of Riviera Maya Sostenible; and Erica Valencia Torres, executive coordinator at Mexico por el Clima.
What the Numbers Show
The gap between national trends and local conditions in Tulum is significant. Mexico's Secretary of Tourism, Josefina Rodriguez Zamora, reported that the country received 8 million international visitors in February 2026, an 8.5 percent increase over the same month in 2025. The government described the figures as historic.
In Tulum, the picture is different. Data from the Quintana Roo Tourism Secretariat and hotel sector reports show the destination registered declines of up to 17.5 percentage points in hotel occupancy last year, with rates falling to between 49 and 66 percent. Business owners in the town center have described 2025 as one of the worst years in memory, and accounts from early 2026 suggest little has changed.
Ortiz Mena acknowledged the paradox directly. Quintana Roo is consolidating major infrastructure investments, including the Tulum International Airport and the Tren Maya, while simultaneously struggling with unresolved problems in urban mobility, sanitation, and territorial management.
"No marketing campaign can replace a well-managed territory," he said.
The Community's Read
Residents and business owners in Tulum are less measured in their language. The explanations circulating in the town cover a range of causes, from pricing culture to political failures to broader macroeconomic pressures.
"The tourists left because the town of Tulum continued to rip them off with exorbitant prices in every sector: transportation, lodging, food, and drinks," said Diego Lievano, a Tulum resident. "Now they're complaining after milking the goose that laid the golden eggs."
Others point outward. Pablo, another local, attributes part of the decline to the economic slowdown in the United States, inflation in Europe, and reduced travel from Asian markets, arguing these factors compound the governance failures on the ground.
Rodolfo Loeza, a Tulum resident, offered a sharper list: "The police, the waiters, the overcharging, the excessive sargassum, the taxi drivers, the shady dealings, the bad public servants, and a complacent population. The goose that laid the golden eggs is gone."
The bitterness in some accounts is not just economic. Pedro, who says he has lived in Tulum for 23 years, described watching the destination grow and then lose what had made it worth growing.
"It's so sad that we let Tulum die. Everything is ruined now. We've all destroyed it."
Identity as Infrastructure
Ortiz Mena's framing places the current crisis inside a larger structural argument. The problem is not simply that Tulum grew too fast. The problem is that growth was not managed in a way that protected the original value proposition.
"The real risk to a destination is not just growing too big. It's losing what made it special," he said.
He also addressed the changing nature of sustainability as a concept. For years, sustainability conversations in tourism centered on environmental compliance. Ortiz Mena argued the term now carries economic and strategic weight.
"The long-term tourism competitiveness of a destination will depend increasingly on territorial quality and the ability to preserve value over time," he said.
That framing reframes the conversation around Tulum's decline. The problem is not just that visitors stopped coming. The problem is that the conditions that made visitors want to come were not protected when they could have been.
Whether those conditions can be restored is a question the industry has not yet answered.
Do you think Tulum can recover its original identity, or has the destination changed beyond repair? Share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.